Tip of the Day!

who says it's not easy being green?  A simple way to add a little green to your day: use re-usable water bottles.  I have a sigg bottle (that I LOVE - it keeps my water tasting fresh all day!!), which is about a $20-$30 investment - not too shabby when you put it in perspective. They say the average American buys 170 bottles of water a year - that's over 200 bucks!  Doesn't sound like a lot, but multiply that by 50 years and you've spent $10,000!  That's a car, or a couple really great vacations, or 200 dinner dates, or lots of clothes, or whatever your heart desires to spend $10,000 on!  Plus, bottled water is much less regulated than tap water meaning your bottled water could be significantly lower in quality than your tap.  Don't like the taste of your tap?  Get a filter - it's still gonna be cheaper than if you use bottle water :)

ribbet ribbet

Vegan Shoes!!!!

I kind of chose to remain ignorant about leather and where it comes from - until I saw Earthlings.  A truly disturbing documentary on the way animals serve us: as pets, as food, as entertainment, as clothing, and for science.  You can watch it for free online - just click on the word "Earthlings" above.  I cried hysterically for the first hour, and after I could hardly see past my puffy eyes, I sat in horror.  I mean it was really really bad.  I think even if you're not vegan, or not too much of an animal lover, you'd be haunted by this.  So I've chosen to fully submerge myself into "vegan-ness" and stop buying leather shoes, bags, wallets, etc.  I still haven't stopped carrying my favorite purse, but maybe I'll come around - I mean I didn't buy it, so does that count??

Anyway, on my quest to find vegan shoes for my wedding, I ran into this AMAZING website.  It's endless.com.  They have thousands of vegetarian shoes, and a lot of them are actually really cute! And most of them are very affordable - I found a pair that I love for $33!  PLUS on most of the shoes they have free 2-day shipping and on some they have free overnight shipping.  PLUS they have free return shipping.  Seriously this site's awesome.  I'm not a huge internet shopper, but with free return shipping how could I not be??  :)   I swear I'm not getting paid for this...

So go to endless.com, click on women's shoes, then at the bottom of the list of categories you'll see vegetarian.

Oh and even if you're not looking for vegetarian shoes, they have bajillions of other shoes.

Happy Shopping!

p.s. they're not all as funky as the yellow ones above, I just liked those :)

Party Soup!

I didn't know what to name it - there's so many fun and yummy things in it.  It's super duper easy and easily modified to please your personal palette!  I had left over rice, diced tomatoes and my carrots needed to be used so I just threw everything together without exact measurements.



Ingredients
1 box (4 Cups) Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Broth*
2-3 cloves Organic garlic
2-3 large Organic Carrots or a few handfuls of organic baby carrots, sliced
1 1⁄2 Cups Organic Brown Rice (cooked)
2 Cans of Organic beans of your choice, rinsed.  I used Navy and Aduki beans (I'd never used aduki before but they're super healthy! click above to learn about them)*
1⁄2 or 1 can of organic diced tomatoes
1 tsp Turmeric
1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Oregano
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste


Directions
Heat a Tbsp or 2 of extra virgin olive oil in a soup pot.  Add garlic and cook a minute until fragrant.  Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

*When buying canned or boxed soups or veggies, always get low sodium or "no salt added."  They put SO MUCH salt in those little innocent looking cans.  So what you might think is healthy soup could actually be causing your blood pressure to increase.

And, if you couldn't tell, I'm making the switch to organic!!!

Gluten Free!

Sneezer and Aunt Kristen

Valentine's Flowers

Michael went to the LA flower district to create a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me.  He woke up at 5 in the morning the day before and got home 5 hours later!  he wanted to get peach peonies (my favorite) but there weren't in season.  I think he did a pretty good job.  I picked a good one :)